Ethel's Sewing Room

It seems like I have always known how to sew since I was a teenager.  Believe it or not I even won a Singer Sponsored Sewing Festival when I was about 14 or so.  I made a royal blue one-piece jogging suit, very stylish for its time!  All I remember is that it had a white rope waist drawstring and my mother made me wear a whistle around my neck to complete the ensemble.  She said afterwards it was the whistle that made the judges pick me as the winner (LOL).  I still have the whistle and the trophy I won, but unfortunately the jogging suit is no more.  It wouldn't fit now anyways.

My mother was an excellent seamstress and has made more for me in the past than I have sewn for myself.  But about 6 years ago Mabel signed us up for a quilting class.  I must admit I found it much more enjoyable than sewing clothing.  Little did I know that the paper piece quilt called the Quilted Village was a little more advanced than a beginner quilt class, but it was fun.  Did the quilt get finished you ask?  Well no it didn't nor did the other class we took either.  Mabel finished hers naturally and has gone on to complete numerous other quilts, but since I had smaller children I just never had the time.  Fast forward to present day 2011!  My son made the comment to me that it's a shame he'll have to show his children someday the quilt that grandma started but never finished.  That got me, so I'm slowly (very slowly) getting back into the quilting and I'm going to complete these quilts I have started and hopefully make more.  However, Mabel keeps getting me involved in so many different projects that I probably will never finish any of them!!

But first I felt I needed to have a space that I could sew other than the kitchen table.  So I've been spending my time turning our den into my den/sewing room.  I think I'm having more fun organizing the room and my sewing notions than I will have sewing!

So the first thing I want to share is the cabinet I got to organize my fat quarters in.

I picked up the cabinet at Michael's crafts and have spent all my time color coordinating my fabric stash and organizing the cubby holes.  The cabinet is a very nice quality and I was able to use a coupon to help bring down the cost.  So I was thrilled.

I don't know if I'll want to use any of my fabrics now,

because they look so cute on the shelf.

Found these cute jars at the Dollar Tree.  They fit perfectly on the shelf and I like that they are actual glass.  The jars at Michael's for the shelf were cute, but they were plastic.

So you can see I am on way to having a sewing nook.  I'll keep you posted as I organize some more.  Mabel laughs at me because I am more into the gadgets and notions and how they look in my room instead of actually using them to accomplish sewing anything!!  She knows me so well.

Vintage Tidbit Tuesday: Your Body is an Instrument!

Exercise, too, is no monopoly of the moderns.  Unfortunately too many moderns seem to have forgotten all about it.  Straining forward with head and shoulders in the struggle to live day by day...we forget to use our other muscles.

If you've been thinking appearance was just clothes, coiffures, or cosmetics...get that false notion out of your head right now.  Clothes and the others do help.  We're all for them...but your true beauty if more than clothes deep, more than skin deep.

No Stradivarius violin is as miraculously constructed as the human body...with its muscles and bones designed for useful function.

Feet with arches to support your weight.  Even your rib cage is like a cathedral arch, and the muscles of your chest and torso form a violin shape.

The most complex telephone or television communication center can't vie with the masterpiece of the human brain.  The finest camera cannot compete with the lens of the human eye.  The human body is a complete musical instrument!

Great Give-a-way and Quote of the Week

Check out the great give-a-way "Where Women Create" is having this week.  Click on this LINK for your chance to win.

And the quote of the week from them is priceless!

Vintage Tidbit Tuesday: Good Food. . .Tastes Good!

Good food means plenty of leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, butter, milk, eggs, proteins, and all the other essentials.  Unless you're on a special diet...you should be able to eat and enjoy almost any wholesome food.

Avoid crankiness about your food, and don't be a slave to taste.  Take yogurt, for instance.  Did you know it was good for you, but did you try it once and not like the taste?  Did you know there are at least twenty different ways of preparing it from salads, sauces, and fruit cups to pancakes and puddings?

The same holds for a basic food like eggs.  You can find a hundred recipes for them in one book...so it's hardly fair to say you don't like eggs.  How do you know you don't until you've tried some of these other recipes?  All this is by way of saying that getting the proper nourishment can be a very pleasant, even delightful process.  It's one of the real joys...of living!

Vintage Tidbit Tuesday: Good Health is Natural!

If you could be a picture on a wall in your favorite doctor's office for just twenty-four hours...you'd wake up to the fact that half the cases he has to treat could have been avoided by a simple health program.

Multiply what you'd see from one doctor's office by thousands...and what do you find?  Millions of people every year turning themselves into human guinea pigs when they were meant to be healthy specimens...then expecting the doctor to be some sort of wizard to cure what could have been so easily prevented in the first place!

You may have walked out on those basic health rules in fourth grade hygiene class.  If so, now's the time to tune right back in on them!

Were you expecting something spectacular like artificial light treatments or new drugs?  Those are usually methods of curing you...once you're down and out.  There are some good preventive modern helps, too.  You can buy a vaporizer from almost any hardware store which will purify the air in your home or office building...killing communicable germs.  Your doctor will recommend other helps.

But despite these modern aids, remember...good health is really a natural process.  You ask, "What about new foods like yogurt, or black molasses?"  Fine, but did you know that yogurt is as ancient as the hills?  Now you can buy it at the grocery store.  As for black molasses, boys and girls have been brought up on it for years and years.

Of course there may be new ways of canning foods quickly to preserve their freshness.  Food companies are working constantly to put out better and more nourishing products which are quick and easy to prepare.  Marketing methods bring you oranges and other fruits and foods from far parts of the world.  So in some respects you really are better off than your ancestors.

But the health program is still a must.  You can't substitute stale air for fresh...jitterbug nerves for relaxation and sleep...a gulped and scanty breakfast for a wholesome one, and expect to win out in good health...or anything else for that matter.

If you're really interested in nutrition...get books and magazines about it.. You will find it a fascinating study in itself.

Mirror

 The back side I forgot to take a before picture of the front.

Really bad gold color.

Left over paint from another project.  Perfect for a little girls, or your college girls room!!

In Our Younger Days

I was cleaning out some old drawers and came accross this picture of Mabel and I in our younger days having one of our first "Desirable Junk" yard sales.  What a fun time we had that day.

Just thought I would share that with you.  Mabel used to go a little crazy with her blue eyeshadow and I know she was so jealous of my rhinestone sunglasses.  We were such hot looking babes in our day and we still are today